Apple brings out a new iPod Shuffle that talks

Apple’s budget music player the iPod Shuffle hasn’t gotten a real make-over since Sept. 2006, when Apple introduced its compact square design. Now, the folks at Cupertino have introduced a third-generation iPod Shuffle that takes up about half the space of its predecessor, doubles the memory (4GB) and adds a new VoiceOver function that speaks the songs, artists and playlist names to you.

The big change, though is the lack of buttons on the new Shuffle. In its pursuit of compactness, the Shuffle moves the track control and volume controls to a dedicated headphone cord. Apple said third-party earphone cords for the Shuffle will be available in the future but for now, the Shuffle will play with Apple’s earbuds only.

The Shuffle, which Apple bills as the world’s smallest music player, is obviously too small to incorporate a screen for the first time. But with the VoiceOver function, you can know what artist and song you’re listening to or what playlist it’s coming from. And you can also hear how much battery life you have left. The VoiceOver function works in 14 languages. Apple has had a text-to-speech function for menu reading on a previous iPod Nano but this is the first time an iPod speaks artist, song and playlist information.

The new Shuffle sells for $79, comes in silver or black and offers 10 hours of playback time. It ships today and should be available in stores by Thursday or so.